


You've Got Niff-Mail!

by MoMoMomma



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Cunning Use of Niffler, M/M, Original Percival Graves is Bad at Feelings, Romantic Fluff, Secret Admirer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9220079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoMoMomma/pseuds/MoMoMomma
Summary: 5 times someone left a note for Newt in Niffler's pouch and 1 time he got the message in person





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вам нюхлепочта!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663779) by [Rishima_Kapur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rishima_Kapur/pseuds/Rishima_Kapur)



> *****WARNING*****  
> The third "note" portion involves mention of animal abuse for the sake of pelt collecting, it is not explicit but it is there. Please take care and skip this portion if that is triggering for you. Stay safe lovelies!
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy my first dip into this wonderful fandom!

He’s halfway asleep, collapsed in a heap after a long day of trying to coax an angry unicorn to _not_ stab him or any of the Aurors trying to wrangle it, when Newt notices the bulge of Niffler’s belly is...bulgier than it should be. 

“Aw, Niff, you said you’d be better!” He complains, grabbing the tiny creature and flipping it, digging careful fingers into it’s sides until things start to tumble out. 

There’s the normal assortment of coins, rings, necklaces--all things he shouldn’t bloody well have, but that he finds regardless--until finally a small piece of paper drifts down onto the pile. Releasing Niffler with a warning look and sweeping the lot into his arms to deposit inside a box until morning, Newt leans against the edge of the dresser to fold open the note.

He expects it might be just a scrap, or perhaps a receipt for some of the jewel’s he’s stolen, so Newt thinks he’s permitted his small noise of surprise when he reads the swooping curls of the letters.

_You did a fantastic job out there today, Newt._

Admittedly, glancing around quickly is a bit of a moronic thing to do--he’s not likely to see the person who wrote it staring at him when he’s sleeping inside his case, is he? But Newt does it anyhow and only sees Dougal’s curious expression and Pickett’s unconscious form on his pillow.

And Niffler’s annoyed stare but he’s used to dealing with that.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me who stuffed this in with your other treasures, would you?” He asks sweetly, snorting when Niffler’s response is to roll over and splay himself out in the warm spot Newt left on the bed.

“Course not. Thanks for that.”

He thinks for a second, reaching back to Charms class--and then to DADA class when that doesn’t give him any worthwhile ideas--and picks up his wand from the desk with unsteady fingers. It shouldn’t be cursed to respond violently to magic, Newt hopes, or Niffler surely wouldn’t have stuck it in his pouch. Letting the paper sit in his palm, he waves the wand over it gingerly.

“ _Aparecium_.”

When nothing shows up, no invisible words bleeding into the light, no traces of magic clinging to the paper now settling back from the slight gust of wind, Newt frowns. It’s a weak spell, granted, mostly used by him to decipher notes passed to him, but it should have worked.

Unless whoever sent the note is a far more powerful wizard.

Swallowing thickly, one eye nearly closed as he winces back, Newt shoves his wand towards the note once more.

“ _Revelio_!”

Nothing.

Not a bloody thing except a sudden snort of a snore from Niffler on the bed.

Maybe it...truly is just a nice word from a nice person?

Folding the note once more, Newt hesitates for a split second before tucking it into his journal.

Compliments are hard to come by, sometimes, when you love the things that actively try to kill/cause trouble for other people.

He’s justified.

 

.O.

 

“Have you been sneaking sweets when I wasn’t looking?”

Newt glances up from his journal, where he’d been scrawling out some new details on puffskein coloration patterns, to see Jacob poke at Niffler’s tummy teasingly. The creature is laid out on the couch, next to where Jacob is resting his feet after a long day, and he sighs before flipping the journal closed.

“Could you hold him, please?”

The next few minutes that follow are filled with more tickling, the Niffler’s exasperated squawks, and Jacob’s increasingly confused expressions as more and more stolen treasures tumble out. Once the pile is formed--and nearly falling off the couch--Newt takes Niffler from Jacob and sends him off with a disappointed shake of his head.

“You ever think of selling the stuff he steals?” Jacob asks, fishing through the shiny objects, picking up a rather large diamond ring to examine it with a curious expression.

“No, not worth the trouble of explaining to the police that I didn’t steal it.” Newt answers, adding the collection to his box, including the ring that Jacob gives up with only slight exasperation.

“You dropped something,” Jacob points out when Newt turns to put the box back, bending to scoop up another piece of paper and shake it at him.

Newt most certainly does _not_ feel a flutter in his stomach as he thanks Jacob and goes to stash the box back in the bathroom--Niffler doesn’t like water, it seems, enough to completely avoid places where it might be.

He does take a moment to calm his breathing before unfolding it, though, and he can’t really be blamed for that. It’s a bit exciting, after all, like discovering new migration patterns or nesting habits.

_You look adorable when you hold your wand in your mouth, but please stop. Too dangerous._

Newt thinks back to earlier, in Graves’ office with their usual menagerie of muggle, wizards, and Obscurus pouring over reports of beasts. He’d stuck his wand in his mouth to flip more quickly through a book, nearly poking Jacob in the eye when he’d turned too fast to answer one of Credence’s quiet questions.

So...the person sending those notes had to be someone that was in the room, right?

And that person thought he looked _adorable_.

Pickett pokes at his red cheeks when he falls face first into bed and clings to his pillow like he’s a Firstie with a crush, but Newt can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed.

 

.O.

 

Newt doesn’t even have the energy to fight when Niffler crawls onto his pillow a few nights later, gentle clinking from inside his pouch. He’s exhausted and barely holding back sobs, tears tracing paths down his cheeks over dried trails from earlier. 

It’s not...it’s so simply barbaric.

Demiguises can be shaved to remove their pelts for the fur. It’s a harmless process, if a bit of a pain when they vanish, but Newt’s done it. When Dougal got too furry and kept tripping over the longer hairs, he gave him a trim and that was that. Even Muggles had learned how to harvest the needed pelt from their sheep without harming the animals in the process.

So to find that people had...had just _slaughtered_ so many just for the pelts...it was--

Niffler nudges him and Newt realizes he’s openly sobbing now, teeth pressed into his wrist in an attempt to muffle them. His heart feels like it may shatter, especially because Dougal hasn’t left his side since they found the...remains. He’s still a warm lump near Newt’s hip, shaking with the force of Newt’s sobs, crooning softly.

He’d kept it together so well back then--though Graves had to pull him away from the scene with unusually gentle hands when shock had locked his legs in place--he’s justified in his breakdown now.

Maybe if he had been faster, if he had figured out the coded note MACUSA intercepted just an hour or two sooner…

Maybe if he was just _better_ , the poor beasts wouldn’t have had to suffer.

Niffler nudges him again, this time with his stomach, and Newt swipes his forearm across his eyes.

“I’m not in the mood tonight, Niff.” He croaks out, throat gone dry as parchment.

Niffler huffs at him before reaching into his pouch himself, drawing out another note and nearly poking Newt in the eye with it when he shoves it forward. He doesn’t have the courage to open it then, still aching and breaking inside, so he sets aside on the bedside table and buries his face in the pillow once more.

Good thing, as it turned out, because the careful words make him tear up again the next morning.

_You did your best. You cannot set yourself on fire to chase every shadow from the world. You’re too gorgeous to burn._

 

.O.

 

“Did you ever have a secret admirer?”

Queenie glances at him over the top of her mug, eyes glinting in the low light of Graves’ office, and a smile curls her mouth before she answers.

“Well, of course! Now, they didn’t stay secret long--I’m good at figuring those out.” She taps her temple with a playful expression, before leaning over the small table towards him. “Do _you_ have a secret admirer, sugar?”

“I think I might just.” Newt answers, her grin spreading to his own face, ready to explain when Graves slams the book laying in front of him shut with a snap.

“I’m sorry, did we suddenly stop working? Did the werewolf stalking Central Park decide to take a night off and no one told me? Or are we just wasting valuable time gossiping when we should be working?”

“You can gossip and work at the same time.” Tina answers from where she’s tucked onto the couch with Credence, giving him the rundown on werewolves.

“Not. Effectively.” Graves growls back, Tina going back to her book with a bowed head as Queenie wrinkles her nose in Graves’ direction.

“We’ve been at this for ages. We could use the break.”

“Fine!” Graves throws his hands up in surrender, an absolutely apocalyptic expression on his handsome features. “Yes, let’s just let someone else get maimed or turned in favor of chewing the rag. Kowalski, got any new bakery items you’re inventing?”

“Uh, yes, actually! I was thinking of making this donut with filling inside? So you bite in and it’s a surprise! And you...are...not being serious.” Jacob trails off when Graves glares at him across the room, sinking back into his chair with a huff and going back to his book on guns.

Newt hates the idea of shooting the werewolf--but repeated attacks typically mean ferality and there’s nothing to be done once a werewolf goes feral.

Credence’s quiet murmur of surprise draws everyone’s attention from Graves’ growing ire, the boy moving the book in his lap aside as Niffler heaves his way up the side of the couch to collapse on his lap. Newt covers his face as Graves snarls out a question as to why Niffler is running around free, just as Queenie pokes him gently in the shoulder with one delicate finger.

“Don’t mind Mr. Grumpy over there. Maybe it’s someone you know? Oooh, maybe it’s Tina!” Her suspicious smile slants over just as Tina starts to huff a protest and Graves loses what--admittedly little--calm Newt thought he had left.

“Everyone out! We’re going to go and stake out this damned thing and--if we are very, very lucky--maybe I’ll Stupefy _it_ tonight instead of one of you!”

Everyone rushes into action, gathering their things and heading for the door.It’s not until they’re gathered in the lobby, all of them having separated to get ready, that he spots Niffler in Credence’s careful arms and takes him with a sheepish smile.

“I think he--uh--I think he took some s-stuff.” Credence whispers quietly as Graves stalks up to their group, discussing the situation with two Aurors tagging behind him.

Newt forgoes the usual shakedown to reach inside the pouch, feeling for how much is there--if it’s only a bit he’ll deal with it when he gets home. It might be therapeutic to sort through the shiny trinkets after a night of dealing with a potentially feral were. Luckily there doesn’t seem to be much and he’s close to setting the creature down and letting him run off when his fingers brush paper.

_Again?_

Newt slips the note out before releasing Niffler, wincing when the creature runs past Graves’ feet and earns him an exasperated arch of one dark brow. He keeps the paper in his palm until they’re in Central Park, the crowd thinning in the late hours, stopping under a lamp to unfurl it.

_You know me. But you’d never guess, I’m not exactly your cup of coffee. Or tea, as it were._

_P.S. I’m not Tina._

When Queenie pokes him later, once the werewolf is contained and they’re all sweaty messes of exhaustion, Newt is still grinning with the residual adrenaline of the note and the chase.

“About your secret admirer? I’m not one to point fingers, you know…”

“No, you just poke them.” Newt murmurs, earning him a halfhearted slap to his shoulder, before Queenie nods over to where Credence is getting a crash course in self-healing from Graves--poor lad took a nasty tumble over some bushes while trying to lure the werewolf into the open.

“I’m just saying, your secret admirer might be closer than you think.”

Oh.

_Oh!_

Oh no.

 

.O.

 

“I need advice. On a...rather personal matter.” Newt lets Graves’ office door shut behind him, ignoring the fact that he’s talking to the front page of a paper instead of to the man’s face.

“I’m not your therapist.” Comes the bored drawl, long fingers turning another page with a shuffle of sound. “Go have tea with Goldstein.”

“It’s about Credence.” Newt blurts, the paper stopping it’s shuffling before it’s slowly lowered and Graves’ arched Brow of Exasperation makes another appearance.

“Has he done something? Has something happened to him?”

“No, no, nothing like that. He’s perfectly fine, Queenie even said he’s getting the hang of using magic to do some things around the house. So...no, good and in control and all that.”

“Then I don’t care.” With a flip the paper is back up and Newt resists the urge to rip it from Graves’ hands.

“You are...Credence’s mentor, right?”

“Well, since it’s largely the fault of my face that his Obscurus revealed itself and no one else is willing to trust what is, in essence, an explosive ball of magic in human form, the role did fall to me. Do you want it?”

“No!” Because as much as Newt wants to help Credence, he does best with beasts. And Queenie has already lectured him on letting Credence hide out in his suitcase and spend time with his beasts instead of people.

“I just meant that...perhaps because you’re supposed to be re-introducing him to the wild, so to speak, that maybe you were the person to approach.”

“You have five seconds to make sense or make scarce, Scamander.”

Newt thumps down heavily in the chair in front of Graves’ desk, staring up at the model witch winking and blowing him a kiss from painted lips. It doesn’t fill him with any sort of gumption so he switches to staring at Graves’ fingers instead, the thickness and surety of them as he pointedly turns another page. He keeps his nails buffered short, Newt realizes with a jolt, not bitten down like his own.

He snorts at the idea of Graves sitting at home with Muggle nail clippers, carefully trimming his fingers to look as neat as the rest of him.

“Scamander.” The paper settles on the desk between them with a sharp slap, Graves glaring full-out across the length of the desk. “What. Do. You. Want.”

“I think Credence is attracted to me.”

“What.”

Oh--Oh, no, that’s not a brow of exasperation, that’s _agitation_ and Newt does not want to be in the room with that.

“I was talking to Queenie--of course, you know that, you snapped at us for it--and she said perhaps it was a person in our group who was attracted to me! And sort of...implied--well, not implied so much as nearly outright said it was Credence.”

“Did she now.” Graves doesn’t lose the aggression in his posture as he leans forward, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth and nailing Newt to the chair with the force of his glare. “Let me be absolutely clear with you, Newt. Credence is _not_ stable enough to be in a relationship. So whatever fairytale you’re spinning for the two of you in your head, Obliviate it.”

“No!” Newt explodes up from the chair, excess energy pouring into his legs and sending him pacing around Graves’ office.

“I don’t _want_ him to be attracted to me, he’s a very sweet boy but he’s--bloody hell, he’s just a _boy_! Well, I mean, I suppose he’s technically old enough to be a man but he hardly qualifies emotionally. And I’m certainly not a good person to like anyhow, I’ve been told. So I need you to make him--oh, I dunno--make him stop being attracted to me.”

“I’d suggest actual Obliviation,” Graves looks bored now, leaning back in his chair and tapping a finger on his desk. “But if he’s attracted to you there’s clearly already madness there. Best not to touch it, I imagine.”

“I’m not ghastly!” Newt found himself saying, something low in his stomach aching at the harshness behind Graves’ words.

He knew the man wasn’t completely fond of him, maybe found him to be a bit obnoxious at times, but something in his chest hurt at the thought of the Auror finding him hideous.

Something akin to panic flashed across Graves’ face and he shoved back from his desk, stepping around with hands held up in front of him.

“I never said that you were. I only said that Credence is hardly in a position to be in a relationship, even with someone as gentle and kind-hearted as you. So for him to pursue anyone is madness best stopped before it starts, for everyone’s best interests.” Graves stopped mere feet from him, hands still up, eyes boring into Newt’s own until he looked away.

“I understand. I’ll...I suppose I’ll talk to him?”

“I’ll talk to him.” Graves’ half-smile bared one sharp canine at the sound of Newt’s explosive sigh of relief. “You look like you’ve gone through hell. Go home and get some rest, Newt.”

“You’ve never said my name before today.” Newt remarked softly, the air around them changing now that they were closer together.

Closer than Newt thought they’d ever been before. Closer than probably advisable since he was suddenly noticing that Graves’ gorgeous eyes has flecks of color in them and that his scruff was starting the grow in on the sides of his strong jaw.

Merlin, had Graves always smelled so good?

“Go home, Newt.” Graves said quietly, smiling gently as he steered him towards the door with a grip on his arm.

Newt thinks he sees a flash of dark fur scampering past his feet into Graves’ office before the door shuts behind him, but the thought is lost under the musings of why in the world he never noticed how attractive the Auror was before.

Later on, once Newt has gone through the new nightly routine of shaking down Niffler, he picks up the new note with shaking fingers. Because he checked with Jacob, Credence spent the day at the bakery with him and Jacob is fairly strict about not allowing Niffler in there. Something about upsetting the customers to see a furry thing running about.

So is it…

The note unfolds smoothly and the words within make Newt’s breath catch, stop, and the leave his lungs in a rush that nearly hurts.

_I don’t say your name often because I like the way it tastes on my tongue far too much._

Oh Merlin’s Beard.

 

.O.

 

“How did you even--Merlin, how did you even think to do such a thing?”

“You were oblivious to everything else.” Graves growls, capturing Newt’s mouth in another spine-melting kiss.

He’s straddling the man in his office, on his couch, clutching desperately at his shoulders, the note crumpled between his palm and hard muscle. Newt rocks down, shuddering at the gasp it draws from Graves’ throat, and rips his mouth away to breathe as the man does his best to suck a mark into the curve of his jaw. His brain is still spinning, still not settled on the situation that he never predicted would come about when he barged into the office half an hour ago.

“But Niffler--how did you get him to _listen_? He never li-listens to me.”

“Bribery gets you everywhere. My bank account is a couple sickles lighter because of that little beast.” Graves switches his hold from Newt’s hips to his arse, cupping it and drawing him close to grind up against him. “Now can we stop talking about your damn Niffler?”

“I just--Graves, you never said anything!”

“We’re past last names now, aren’t we, Newt?”

Merlin, if Graves thought his name _tasted_ good, it’s nothing compared to how delicious it bloody _sounds_.

“Percival,” he breathes out into the older man’s mouth, sinking into his hold with a moan.

He’ll have to give the Niffler a few shiny things of his own as thanks for bringing them together.

But that can come later.

Much later.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm momomomma2 over on tumblr, come visit and we'll chat about FB!


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